How Arun a ‘scientist from NASA’ fooled the Indian media for two years

He had just been recruited by the NASA, the American space organization. In August 2012, news reports appeared in Malayalam newspapers and TV channels with visuals of young people celebrating this success of one of their own. Then, there was no looking back for P.V. Arun from Manimala in Kerala.

He was headline material. Arun claimed NASA had accepted him as a research scientist and he had been admitted simultaneously for a doctoral thesis by the famous scientist Barbara Liskov, faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in January 2013.

A month later, the English media picked up the story

“In search of extraterrestrial life” The Hindu reportedon September 19, 2012 and added that Arun will be joining elite scientists in their search for the existence of extraterrestrial life, working from his own workstation at the National Aeronautics…